Description

TITLE: Cheese Technologist

LOCATION: Tulare,CA

REPORTS TO: Plant Director

Lactalis Heritage Dairy is currently seeking candidates to join our team in Tulare, CA.

Lactalis Group, the world leader in dairy, is a family-owned business with more than 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals worldwide, committed to providing healthy and delicious dairy products that bring people together every day. At Lactalis, our core values of AMBITION, ENGAGEMENT, and SIMPLICITY are at the heart of everything we do.

If you're looking for a unique experience with a company that offers strong brands, professional expertise, and a dynamic work environment that champions entrepreneurial spirit, hands-on responsibility, and real opportunity for career development, we want to hear from you!

Lactalis Heritage Dairy: inviting you to share with us your STORY, your PASSION, and your EXPERTISE.

From your PASSION to ours

The Cheese Technologist is responsible for overseeing the entire cheese-making process. This role provides technical support by reviewing and optimizing cheese make/recipes to ensure achievement of finished product specifications, raw material cost and cheese performance targets. This position partners with R&D, Quality, and plant operations to ensure that the plant is producing products of the highest quality.

From your EXPERTISE to ours

Key responsibilities for this position include:

• Partner with R&D and Quality on new recipe development, new product development and commercialization and quality improvement initiatives.
• Partner cross-functionally with operations, engineering, and other teams to ensure continuous development and improvement of cheese making while focusing on raw materials management.
• Develop and conduct effective training programs to ensure all employees understand cheese making and other dairy product processes. Equips teams with the appropriate training and tools to troubleshoot issues.
• Analytically review recipes, results, and plant performance, identifying and working on opportunities for improvement. Target areas include but are not exclusive to yield, throughput, cost of manufacturing and product performance.
• Conduct effective root cause analysis on issues impacting product quality and processes and develop solutions that drive operational improvement.
• Review financial performance with Plant Director and Controller; make necessary adjustments to optimize raw material cost and losses.
• Review and analyze QA and internal product performance testing reports. Actively participate in daily sensory evaluations and grading to ensure optimal product quality.
• Develop and implement cost reduction programs based on continuous improvements and return on investment capital projects to support the EBITDA growth.
• Provide direction to project teams responsible for executing process and product changes.
• Partner cross-functionally to develop and write SOPs for new processes.
• Partner cross-functionally to evaluate processes and systems, generate alternatives and make recommendations to reduce waste, increase utilization, reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, and produce improved financial outcomes.

Requirements

From your STORY to ours

Qualified applicants will contribute the following:

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Dairy Science or Food Science is required.
• 7+ years' experience in dairy product manufacturing is required.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• In-depth understanding of food chemistry, microbiology, and dairy processing. Expertise in cheese making is required.
• In-depth understanding of plant operations and dairy manufacturing processes.
• Knowledge of laboratory methods and full understanding of process and formulation as relates to food safety.
• Knowledge of production operations management as relates to quality, yield, and cost.
• Ability to work effectively with multiple cross-functional teams and stakeholders with the ability to effectively influence others.
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to prioritize and plan work.
• Knowledge of SAP strongly preferred.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office software, specifically Excel is required.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to present complex solutions to technical and non-technical stakeholders across all levels of the organization.
• Strong material control analysis (yields/mass balance) skills.

Lactalis Heritage Dairy is an equal employment opportunity employer. We will not discriminate against applicants with regard to any legally-recognized basis including, but not limited to: veteran status, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities.